


Survival

by sabinelagrande



Category: Marvel 1602
Genre: Catholic, Community: 1602ficathon, F/M, Incest, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-22
Updated: 2006-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:57:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the only thing that matters is that you make it through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aphrodite_mine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/gifts).



> A note: When I wrote this, lo these many years ago, I knew zero about X-Men outside of 1602 and the movies. If I'd known Kitty Pryde was canonically Jewish, I would have written a different story. I'm not going to take it down, but please accept this note as an apology for my former ignorance. (June 7, 2016)

Petros huddles against his sister's back in the darkness of her tiny cell, holding her tightly to his chest.

It has been like this ever since she came to the abbey, a bleak place run by English refugees in France. He comes in long after all the sisters have gone to bed and holds her. When she wakes up, he's always gone.

Wanda knows it must be a sin, but only in the dim way in which she knows that everything she loves is a sin.

\--

In some little village Wanda's never been to, a girl wakes up in the kitchen of her parents' tiny house. Silently, she sneaks back up the ladder into the loft she shares with her brothers. This night, she is not so lucky; she treads on her brother's hand in the darkness, and he cries out.

Her mother sits up in bed and bellows at her to come back down.

\--

Petros is back with his master, and Wanda kneels at her lauds. She prays for the same things that she prays for every day: that Petros will come back to her safely, that they will never be separated again, that God will forgive him for being witchbreed.

The Abbess gives her the sympathetic look she's taken to giving her lately. Wanda is certain the old woman knows more than she will ever admit to knowing. The thought seizes her that Sister Douglas must be witchbreed, too, and she prays that God will spare them all.

\--

Her father brings the switch down again, and Katharine cries again that she didn't sneak out. He relents, throwing the switch away, and wipes the tears out of her eyes.

"Whatever the lass did, she's been punished enough," he tells her mother, who rolls her eyes. "Will ye nae tell me, Kat?"

The girl shakes her head. As much as she wants to, she can't tell what she doesn't know. She throws her arms around her father's neck, and he comforts her.

\--

"Why does the church burn the witchbreed?" she asks Sister Douglas as they walk the grounds. The Abbess sighs and pushes back her coif, rubbing her hairless head like she always does when she's extremely vexed.

"Because the Inquisition believes that God makes abominations as well as men," she answers. "They have convinced Rome that God damns them without giving them a hope of redemption."

It's what Wanda wants to hear, but she doesn't want to trust it. "Is it not possible that they are not men, but the tools of the Devil?"

"All men are tools of the Devil," Sister Douglas tells her. "Some moreso than others."

\--

"Kitty!"

She turns, and the baker's son comes running up behind her, holding a bedraggled flower. He holds it out to her like a precious offering, and Katharine can't help but smile. Looking around her to make sure her mother's not near, she gives him a peck on the cheek and runs away with her friends.

\--

And then it happens, because it was always going to happen. He falls asleep next to her, and when she awakes, he's still laying there. She shakes him awake just as a pair of novices open the door to her cell to call her to matins.

Wanda puts up her hands, and a light comes from out them. The first novice trips over her own feet, and the next falls over her. Petros kisses her once and is gone, ruffling Sister Douglas's tunic in his haste. Wanda can't stop looking at her hands, wishing that they'd just fall off.

The Abbess purses her lips and stares hard at Wanda, and Wanda knows every sin she has committed is laid open to her.

\--

She's just walking down the street when Emily, in all her hand-me-down finery, appears from an alleyway, furious.

"You can't be talking to Robert anymore," she tells her, clinching her fists. "My mum says we're going to be betrothed, and that you're just a little," she savors the word, "harlot."

"Your mum's a liar," Katharine tells her, defiant, "and a drunkard."

Emily's nostrils flare angrily, and she pushes Katharine as hard as she can against the wall of the milliner's shop.

Except that Katharine goes right through the wall, almost knocking the milliner over as she falls. His eyes are the size of gold pieces, and he runs into the street, crying for the priest.

\--

Before she can begin to worry, the Inquisitor comes in from Spain. The Abbess's eyes darken as they always do when he's near, and Wanda is sore afraid.

She's too afraid to ask after her brother, but, before she can, he appears at the Inquisitor's side, running slowly for the last few meters so that he doesn't notice anything amiss.

"Your training is complete," he tells them, not bothering to smile. "You are to join me in Spain immediately. Our ship leaves this afternoon."

As Petros helps Wanda put her meager possessions in a bag, she suddenly throws her arms around him and holds him tight. "He'll know," she whispers, starting to cry. "He'll know everything."

Petros doesn't respond.

\--

Katharine can't remember the last time she saw the sun. She's been here just long enough to appreciate the irony of the situation; if she could remember how to do what she did to get in here, she would be out by now. Though, she's not so sure it would help; from the voices of the guards, she thinks she must be in Spain.

The Inquisitor, tall and terrifying, stares down at her every morning and tells her to repent. Katharine stares at the wall, knees drawn up against her chest. Her father has told her stories of the great martyrs, and Katharine is more convinced every day that she isn't one of them. Still, she is beginning to understand how they felt; even if she knew what she should be repenting, she wouldn't.

"Katharine Pryde," his voice booms one cold morning, "you are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and you will be burned at dawn." Then he just walks out, as if there is nothing left to say.

\--

"I sent your brother to England," the Inquisitor says over dinner in the damp hall.

Wanda's appetite disappears. "When will he be returning?" she asks, her heart beating out of her chest.

"In a few minutes, I imagine," he answers, taking a bite of his food nonchalantly, as if the sound of her heart breaking isn't loud enough to hear.

"Please," she manages to stammer, clasping her hands together and trying not to cry. She gulps, breathes, tries to steady herself. "But if you knew-" There aren't words. "Why?"

He raises his hand towards a tankard at the other end of the table. A second later, it slaps into his hand.

"Because life is only about survival," he tells her.  
\--

They lead her out into the small yard of what has been her prison. Despite herself, she had been hoping it would be in public, so that she might see her papa one last time.

The Inquisitor demands her last words. The nun standing behind him looks at her with pain in her eyes, as if she's still hoping Katherine will relent.

"Emily Frost is an ugly harlot," she says, drawing her shoulders up.

The Inquisitor gives the signal, and the executioner touches off the fire.

\--

Wanda can see herself in the flames. If anyone else knew, she knows that the Inquisitor would not hesitate to put her there and leave her to die for all their sins.

From out of her heart, she cries her new daily prayer: that she will learn to survive. As if he can hear her, Petros slips his hand into hers, and she squeezes it as tightly as she can.

\--

The flames are almost up to her chest now, and she just knows the bottom of her dress is catching. "God, turn me into nothing," she prays aloud, but she knows no one is listening.

The fire flares up suddenly, encasing her fully, and Katharine takes a last, deep breath.

\--

When the pyre finally dies down, there is nothing left but wood ash. Wanda falls on her hands and knees and prays as fervently as she can, wanting to believe it's a sign.


End file.
